Discovery Crew Prepares For Return After Completing Mission

April 29, 1990|By N.Y. Times News Service

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Still buoyant over their historic deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, five astronauts prepared Saturday to end their five-day shuttle flight with a landing Sunday morning, weather permitting.

The space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to land at 9:49 a.m. EDT at Edwards Air Force Base in California. But officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said high winds could delay the astronauts' return by a day or more.

"We're going to have to watch the weather very closely," said Wayne Hale, a flight director at Houston's Mission Control.

The final decision on landing could be delayed until five minutes before the Discovery's engines are to ignite to begin the descent from orbit, a maneuver that should begin an hour and 12 minutes before touchdown.

Hale said the shuttle had enough fuel, oxygen and other supplies to remain in orbit until Wednesday, if necessary.

The astronauts spent their last planned day in space completing scientific experiments and packing up gear for coming home. All guidance and propulsion systems for the landing maneuver were checked out and found to be in working order.

"All systems are performing very well indeed," Hale said at a news conference in Houston. "It's one of the cleanest flights we've had."

At the same time Discovery was winding up its mission, the seven astronauts for the next shuttle flight successfully completed a countdown demonstration test in the Columbia on the launching pad.

On their mission, tentatively set to begin May 16, the astronauts plan to operate telescopes sensitive to ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths, some of the most energetic in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Their observations will be brief and specific compared with the wide-ranging operations over the next 15 years planned for the Hubble Space Telescope, which the Discovery crew deployed Wednesday.

The Hubble is capable of observations mainly of visible light but also in ultraviolet and a part of the infrared spectrum.

In a news conference from 380 miles in orbit, the Discovery astronauts expressed satisfaction with their role in delivering the largest, most complex telescope ever to put in space.